Effective Virtual Project Teams: A Design Science Approach to Building a Strategic Momentum

244 Pages·2019·3.813 MB·English

by  Raymond Opdenakker, Carin Cuypers

Future of Business and Finance
Raymond Opdenakker
Carin Cuypers
Eff ective Virtual
Project Teams
A Design Science Approach to
Building a Strategic Momentum
Future of Business and Finance
TheFutureofBusinessandFinancebookseriesfeaturesprofessionalworksaimedat
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onstrategicdirections,technologicaladvances,andchallengesandsolutionswhich
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furtherdiscussionsanddevelopments.
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(cid:129)
Raymond Opdenakker Carin Cuypers
Effective Virtual Project
Teams
A Design Science Approach to
Building a Strategic Momentum
RaymondOpdenakker CarinCuypers
BureauLara BureauLara
Maastricht,TheNetherlands Maastricht,TheNetherlands
ISSN2662-2467 ISSN2662-2475 (electronic)
FutureofBusinessandFinance
ISBN978-3-030-22227-7 ISBN978-3-030-22228-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22228-4
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To our ‘best man’ ing.
Gerard Fritschy (1919–1999)
Foreword
This book discusses two important and interesting issues. On the one hand, it
discusses the development of effective virtual teams and on the other hand a still
toolittleusedmanagementresearchstrategy,viz.designscienceresearch.
ThebookisbasedonaresearchprojectbyRaymondOpdenakker,onimproving
theeffectivenessofvirtualteams.Moreinparticular,theresearchwasinterestedin
the effectiveness of research and development teams composed of academic
researchers and industrial professionals. The members of these teams were
distributedalloverEurope.
In co-located teams, the main mode of communication between its members is
face-to-face.Indistributedteams,themaincommunicationmodeisviatheInternet,
hence the label ‘virtual team’. The limited face-to-face communication in a virtual
team poses serious problems for project managers. In the absence of daily
communications,thesuccessoftheirprojectheavilydependsonthepersonaldrive
and self-control of their team members. Opdenakker used the idea of creating
effectiveteamsbyfocusingonactionstodevelopfortheseteamsastrongstrategic
momentum.Oncesuchamomentumhasbeendeveloped,thesuccessoftheproject
nolongerdependsprimarilyondailycommunicationsbetweentheprojectmanager
andhisorherteam.
Inacademicmanagementresearch,thedominantresearchparadigmholdsthatthe
objectiveofthistypeofresearchistodescribeandexplainthepresent,likeitisinthe
motherofallsciences,physics.However,Opdenakker’sprojecthadtheobjectiveto
improve the present. Therefore, he chose design science research (DSR) as his
research strategy. DSR aims to develop designs for actions, processes, or systems
for improving present operations or situations. He discusses this type of research
strategy and how he applied it to develop designs for actions to realise effective
virtualteams.
Thisbookwillprovidemuchinsightforitsintendedaudience,consistingofboth
professionals interested in virtual teams and researchers interested in management
researchstrategies,aimingtoimprovethepresent.
EindhovenUniversityofTechnology JoanvanAken
Eindhoven,Netherlands
vii
Contents
1 IntroductionandFieldProblemConcerningVirtualProject
Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 DesignScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 DesignScienceResearch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.1 DesignPropositions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 DesignScienceResearchCycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 FieldProblemsintheDomainofVirtualProjectTeams. . . . . . 7
1.5.1 ChoiceoftheFieldProblem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 StrategicMomentum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 StrategicMomentum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2.1 HistoryoftheConceptofMomentum. . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2.2 TheOriginsoftheConceptofMomentum. . . . . . . . . 21
2.2.3 StrategicMomentumintheAcademicManagement
Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.4 StrategicMomentuminVirtualProjectTeams. . . . . . 25
2.2.5 MeasuringStrategicMomentum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2.6 ASpecialCaseofMomentum:TeamFlow. . . . . . . . 27
2.3 SolutionConcept. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.4 ResearchQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3 VirtualProjectTeamsandTheirEffectiveness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 TeamDefinitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3 WhatIstheEffectivenessofVirtualTeams?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.4 CriticalSuccessFactorsforaVirtualTeam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.4.1 TeamInputs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.4.2 TeamProcesses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
ix
x Contents
3.4.3 TeamOutcomes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4 SearchingforMomentuminVirtualProjectTeams. . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2 DeweyCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 62
4.2.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.3 GOACase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.3.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.3.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 72
4.3.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.4 PRINTCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 82
4.4.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.5 BerlinCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.5.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.5.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 94
4.5.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.6 ParisCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.6.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.6.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 106
4.6.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.7 LisbonCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.7.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.7.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 118
4.7.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.8 JiaozuoCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.8.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.8.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 131
4.8.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.9 GroningenCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.9.1 ProjectStructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.9.2 Within-CaseAnalysis:TheEmergenceandSustaining
ofStrategicMomentum. . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 138
Contents xi
4.9.3 Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
4.10 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
5 EmergenceandSustainingofTeamTaskInsight,Empowerment,
CollectiveCommitment,andStrategicMomentum. . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.2 EmergenceandSustainingofStrategicMomentum. . . . . . . . . 156
5.3 PresentationofthePropositions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
5.4 DescriptionoftheProjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
5.4.1 BerlinCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
5.4.2 ParisCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
5.4.3 LisbonCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
5.4.4 DeweyCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.4.5 PRINTCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
5.4.6 GOACase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
5.4.7 GroningenCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
5.4.8 JiaozuoCase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.5 RelationBetweenTeamTaskInsight,Empowerment,and
CollectiveCommitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.5.1 EmergenceofStrategicMomentumattheStartofthe
Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
5.5.2 SustainingofStrategicMomentum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
5.6 ConclusionsConcerningtheThirdResearchQuestion. . . . . . . 169
5.7 DesignProposition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
5.8 EmergenceandSustainingofTeamTaskInsight,Empowerment,
andCollectiveCommitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.9 CreationofTeamTaskInsight,Empowerment,andCollective
Commitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
5.9.1 TeamTaskInsight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
5.9.2 Empowerment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.9.3 CollectiveCommitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.10 SustainingTeamTaskInsight,Empowerment,andCollective
Commitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
5.10.1 TeamTaskInsight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
5.10.2 Empowerment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
5.10.3 CollectiveCommitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
5.11 ConclusionsConcerningtheResearchQuestion. . . . . . . . . . . 205
5.12 DesignProposition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212